I refer to the editorial,
“When teachers are rapists” (Sept 15). I fully agree with the view that a teacher “is supposed to be a parent away from home”. It is just like fence itself eating the crop in a field. Ironically, the name of the Director of Vishwas Senior Secondary School, Hisar, also carries the suffix “Vishwas” but he has broken the people’s “vishwas”.

Disturbingly, the number of sex maniacs is burgeoning in schools and colleges. I endorse the argument that “only the sternest action and the severest punishment can act as deterrent”. Our TV channels are also polluting the social ambience by showing explicit sex on the screen. Sex is being glorified and overserved in every drawing room on TV and this is turning our youth, middle-aged men and even adolescents into mindless libertines.

In this way, the fault in the entire system of our social life percolates to individual members and conditions their lifestyle also. Sociologists and enlightened sections in the media ought to debate this issue seriously. Why are more and more of educated men turning into beasts? Why aren’t our little daughters secure in schools? Why are women now scared of losing their honour even while going out to ease themselves in the fields in the morning in rural areas?

The increasing deviant sexual behaviour is overtly or covertly related with our changing life values also and the TV channels in our country are contributing maximum to this negative trend. Something concrete must be done to check this negative phenomenon.

RAJ BAHADUR YADAV,

Fatehabad

II

A teacher is supposed to protect the child, who reposes blind faith in him, from repression and mental disorders of all kinds and not to let loose repression on the innocent, undefiled, pure and spotless children by outraging their modesty without any qualms. The depraved act of Hisar’s so-called school director is a case in point.

Such rapists, functioning under the garb of teachers, should be awarded harshest punishment. They should be ostracised and gelded to act as a strong deterrent.

The teacher is indispensable for the child’s education. He shapes the child’s destiny as a guide, friend and counselor. he relation between the two is that of a parent and a child. That sacred bond has been shattered by a black sheep, who has stigmatised the entire teaching community by committing the heinous crime on his girl-students. He and his ilk ought to be sent to the gallows. No mercy should be shown to them.

The editorial rightly said that such men have no place in society, let alone schools. Rather schools should be purged of such vultures.

TARSEM S.
BUMRAH,

Batala

III

After the most unfortunate happening in a Hisar school and the protests and demonstrations by the people who felt rightly and deeply hurt, some disgruntled petty politicians and mischievous elements in other towns have started taking political mileage out of one isolated happening. The law must take its own course and the authorities are taking appropriate action against the offender.

There is always some kind of opposition to every management in every town but to take undue advantage of an incident and disturb the peace of other towns is ridiculous and short-sightedness to say the least. Similarly, attempts to blacken and target other morally upright, committed and well-qualified teachers and reputed institutions are highly condemnable.

Dr VINOD
PANDYA,

Principal, Vishwas School,
Shahabad Markanda

The Battle of Saragarhi

IN recalling the Battle of Saragarhi fought on Sept 12, 1897 (Sept 12), Pritam Bhullar has kept alive the dictum that “soldering is the profession of the living and the dead”. Implying that the soldiers who are trained, motivated and launched of the battlefield are the “living”. And those who fall in the call to duty, their brave deeds are then honoured and remembered by their comrades, for all times.

The 20 soldiers of 4 Sikh who died fighting at Saragarhi to the last man’ accounted 450 of the enemy in dead and wounded. The last of the defenders to go down fighting was Gurmukh Singh, the “Signaller” who had kept his commanding officer posted all along with a blow-by-blow account of the action as it was being fought out. And that became the recorded Regimental History of this epic battle. Little wonder that the House of Commons, London, stood to a man in ovation to the war braves of 4 Sikh!

Recorded history apart, I have occasionally heard from old soldiers that the Battle of Saragarhi had found a place in the school texts in France in the 1920s as an example of supreme valour on the battlefield. And that in more recent times in UNESCO publication, Saragarhi figured among the eight most epic and gallant battles.

Can any reader of The Tribune authenticate the above oral history by way of recorded narratives he/she may have come across?